Perennial Wisdom - practical implementation

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Personal habits and beliefs rooted in religion can serve as foundational principles for individuals. These principles often guide how individuals live their daily lives, make personal decisions, and engage with others. Many religious traditions provide a moral and ethical framework that influences personal behaviour, relationships, and lifestyle choices. In an environment where most people one meets practice their faith similarly, this may not confront a believer with contradictions in their own behaviour or assumptions.

The challenge arises when individuals navigate the translation of their personal religious principles into the public sphere. People often encounter diverse belief systems and secular values in modern, pluralistic societies. Balancing personal religious convictions with the principles of a secular, inclusive public space can be complex. Questions about the role of religion in shaping public policy, education, and societal norms become central to these discussions.

My own experience was that my conviction moved me to become a nurse, but on entering that field, I found that many assumptions I heard in the religious environment I was used to were not viable in my profession. I had to overcome what I discovered to be exclusive policies and expand my perspective of possible outlooks on life. I also noticed how other members of the religious environment were unwilling to make the same adjustments I found necessary, which led to my leaving that environment.

With time, I found a comparative study of religious traditions to have basic ideas, which I then found constituted a perennial philosophy, such as described by Aldous Huxley in his book of the same name. Perennial wisdom posits that essential truths are common to Humankind and can be found across diverse cultures and belief systems. It emphasises the commonality of core principles that underlie different religious and philosophical traditions. The term “perennial” implies that this wisdom is not bound by the constraints of a specific historical period and remains relevant across generations. It suggests that these insights are not subject to obsolescence and continue to provide guidance over time.

Perennial wisdom also emphasises the importance of direct and personal experience in uncovering these timeless truths. It suggests that individuals can access profound insights through contemplation, meditation, or spiritual practices. Prominent examples of perennial wisdom can be found in the works of mystics, philosophers, and spiritual teachers from various traditions, including Sufism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, and others. It may include teachings on compassion, love, self-awareness, and the interconnectedness of all existence.

Working as a nurse confronted me with existential experiences of life and obviously challenged me concerning my religious principles. Perennial wisdom can offer valuable insights and guidance in the nursing profession in several ways. Above all, perennial wisdom emphasises compassion, empathy, and the interconnectedness of all life. These principles inspire caregivers to approach their patients with deep understanding and empathy in nursing, fostering a more compassionate and supportive healthcare environment.

Perennial wisdom encourages a holistic understanding of individuals, acknowledging the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit, as well as their relationships and environment. In nursing, adopting a holistic approach can lead to more comprehensive patient care that considers physical health alongside emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. Many traditions also address the nature of suffering and provide insights into coping mechanisms. Nurses, who often deal with patients facing illness, pain, and loss, can find solace and guidance in perennial wisdom teachings that explore the nature of suffering and offer strategies for emotional and spiritual support.

We also find the importance of being present in the moment and cultivating mindfulness in nursing. Being fully present with patients can enhance the quality of care and communication. Mindfulness practices can also help manage stress and maintain a sense of calm amid challenging situations. Perennial wisdom also advocates for self-awareness and self-care. In the demanding field of nursing, embracing practices that promote personal well-being, resilience, and balance can contribute to sustained professional effectiveness and prevent burnout.

Lastly, perennial wisdom often includes ethical principles that transcend specific cultural or religious contexts. These principles can inform ethical decision-making in nursing, providing a foundation for values such as integrity, justice, and compassion.

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I suppose I should be grateful that I haven’t been bombed until now.

What is missing is the provocation, probably. I have named one practical implementation of perennial wisdom. Do you think there are others?

I have the suspicion that most people don’t even know what I am talking about because the focus is generally on criticising the Abrahamic religions, with the Eastern traditions coming away in a better light. Aldous Huxley mixed them up, drawing from the mystical writers of Abrahamic religions, comparing them with Eastern traditions, and seeing a large comparison in their practices or habits.

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A very insightful post - thanks for sharing.

This really resonated with me. It emphasizes within a conviction to recognize and speak to truth - as to navigate life well, often demands strong bearings.

On meditation:

Reality is abundant.
There is so much space to process.
Being still and focusing on small sections at a time helps.
Wisdom can be drawn from deep reflection of one’s environment.

On timeless underlying wisdom:

I agree that most traditions / belief systems have universal truths [‘perennial wisdom’] embedded within.
Wisdom is empowering and gives us tools to utilize when seeking resolve to tests / challenges we arrive it.
Truth is solid and will not collapse beneath one’s feet.
It gives us a platform to leap for greater heights.

I wish for our empowerment, yet I fear it can be undermined.
A structure with truth that has falsehood tethered between risks collapse -
with the ratio of falsehood increasing the possibility.
The truth will remain untarnished within the debris, but the falsehoods will crumble.

I wish people the power of truth as refined as able.
Yet with compassion, not wish anyone’s collapse.
Perhaps a slow & steady descent from that tower -
yet we get to keep the treasure of jewels.

On Abrahamic religions:

The bad wrap they get in comparison Eastern traditions / belief systems, is that many followers of Abrahamic religions are led awry.
Many prominent practicers engage in actions that highly questionable in the name of their beliefs.
I haven’t been exposed to many instances of people being condemned, proselytized or attacked in the name of Buddha.
There is value within, but their reputations have been tarnished - particularly in the west, where they are prominent.

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Judaism, although the promises first given to Abraham have an all-peoples perspective, has its roots in the same “east” as the rest of the eastern religions.

And Buddhism has undergone much cultural adaptation to make it more palatable to other cultures. Not all that adaptation was very friendly… or faithful to the original teachings.

There are commonalities shared between all cultures/religions. Let’s call those “essentials”. What a culture/religion considers essential, in such a way that criticizes other cultures/religions/denominations who don’t consider it essential — those are things that need to be worked out with conflict resolution skills. If the essentials violate self=other, some muckety-muck or group of muckety-mucks is exploiting the system & won’t likely relinquish the narrative to public dialogue and scrutiny.

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You are very welcome. I see you’ve been around for some time but we haven’t interacted – or am I wrong?

I would say that it is a conviction to follow the evidence in order to ascertain truth so that we can navigate as well as we can, taking our bearings from time-tested experience.

Do you meditate? I started at first with MBSR but adapted my practice with time. My experience was that finding a kind of respite from the incessant noise in my head was liberating and assisted me in attending better to existential questions, but also in avoiding distractions. After all, outside there is also a persistent noise that seems to distract large portions of society.

I think that truths, when we find them, are of different characteristics. There are situative truths, dependent upon the circumstances we find ourselves in, and there are the broader truths that cover a wider range of situations. It must be seen whether they are universal because our perceptions are distinctly restricted to what we know. Our language reveals our dependency upon metaphor, and so I am reticent about how much we know, which, I am told is wisdom.

Empowerment, as in becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life or even claiming one’s rights, is an awarded or enabled authority or power, whether given from some higher authority or given in the course of maturation. It is also given within a framework, which we see clearly when we talk about human rights, which may or not be acknowledged by political leaders. This means that empowerment is circumstantial and we must live with a degree of dependency, which is where humility and compassion plays a role.

The “bad wrap” is an unfortunate exclusivism, which makes the Abrahamic religions antagonistic. The mystical branches of these religions tend to be more agreeable, which may come from a non-dual perspective. Buddhists are still prone to violence despite condemning violence in every form. Ahimsa, a term meaning ‘not to injure’, is a primary virtue in Buddhism, but In Southeast Asia, Thailand has had several prominent virulent Buddhist monastic calls for violence. In the 1970s, nationalist Buddhist monks like Phra Kittiwuttho argued that killing communists did not violate any of the Buddhist precepts.

Though most Buddhists do not proselytise, they have no qualms about sharing facts about Buddhism when asked to elaborate by others. Though proselytising is generally frowned upon and goes against Buddhist teachings, it is not rigidly prohibited, and Buddhism does not tend to have a strict list of taboos. Western Buddhists I have known have sent me brochures inviting me to join their Sangha.

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The composition of the Bible, as we are coming to realise, was an intelligent and successful attempt to form a national narrative and essentially to overcome the need for the temple or even a state. That is why, in the end, the Jews were successful in the Diaspora, because they could continue their tradition in the synagogues that were already around at the time of Jesus. It came about due to a resounding defeat and deportation, although the tale of the ten tribes assimilated is probably legendary or even fiction. The southern kingdom stole much of its “history” from the northern kingdom but incorporated the tales into a joint narrative.

I also believe that the teaching attributed to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount has its roots in the East, and even the older concept of Monotheism may also come from there. This makes the claim of exclusivity that the church has enforced at the cost of so many lives even more ridiculous, and the antagonist role that Abrahamic religions still play today is not outweighed by the good that has also been achieved. Many of the beneficial aspects of Christianity throughout history were achieved despite the church and at personal risk rather than through the church.

The book Aldous Huxley put together acknowledges the mystical traditions as more likely to align with Eastern traditions despite the cultural influence that formed them. In Germany, a protestant pastor put two similar books together, showing that we are all not that far apart when it comes to the sacred. Recently, Iain McGilchrist, in his book “The Matter With Things,” showed how it has to do with the makeup of our brain functions and different ways of attending to life. Unfortunately, as he showed, the more narrowly focused attention tends to dominate, and the broader perspective, which is expressed in the humanities, and, is in fact more socially competent, is pushed aside. It is also why various forms of strict, literal interpretation of scripture are so militant.

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The basis for the ethics of love which Jesus taught is that we are one. Love your neighbor as yourself because they are yourself. Love your enemy because s/he is you. But unless one sees how this is true it’s just a funny teaching. Common sense tells us that it’s impractical. Religious people talk about this stuff in church, but in the real world it will just get you laughed at or maybe killed. People who really imitate Jesus have a tendency to get martyred. Think Ghandi or Martin Luther King. Of course, they were charismatic types who attracted large followings. Like Jesus, they led by example. People like that become saints or ideals that we lesser beings seek to be like or even pray to. Of course, people conceive of this in different ways. What do you think?

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I think we should pray (talk) to people we can see in front of us—excepting that consciousness which is revealed in creation.

And excepting a strong internal (or external, as the case may be) dialogue with oneself. :slight_smile:

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Gandhi and MLK were great people, but they were human beings like Jesus. We all have our flaws, even when we appear to others as model human beings. That is why, even if I find someone inspirational and perhaps imagine speaking to them, it is a projection out of which we hope to gain inspiration for our own lives. Other religions also practise this.

Many Buddhists imagine what the Buddha might advise in difficult situations, often using his teachings to navigate their own lives, or Guanyin in Chinese Buddhism, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Muslims often reflect on how Muhammad might have handled specific situations, looking to Hadiths (reports of his sayings and actions) for guidance. So, praying to saints or the Virgin Mary for intercession and seeking guidance and inspiration to live virtuously is inherently religious.

Hindu Devotees meditate on what Rama or Krishna would do in their situation, drawing on their stories to make moral decisions. Sikhs contemplate the teachings and actions of the Gurus when seeking inspiration for ethical and spiritual dilemmas. Followers of Confucianism imagine how Confucius would advise on issues of morality and proper conduct, striving to embody his principles in daily life.

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Yes. The monks of the Ramakrishna order recognize Christ as an incarnation of God. But they also recognize Rama, and Krishna, Buddha and Ramakrishna as such. They teach that in a dark age, God incarnates to give light to the world. Now this would seem to contradict nondualism in a literal sense. If everything is an incarnation so how can a man be? But, it may be seen that such individuals are there to point the ignorant to our true identity. That is what I see Jesus was doing.

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‘The range of idols is from wood and stone to Jesus and Buddha. Show by your lives that religion does not mean words, or names, or sects, but that it means spiritual realization. Only those who have attained to spirituality can communicate it to others…They alone are the powers of light.’

Swami Vivekananda

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I like Kierkegaard on this in terms of …you could know all the objective truths without living them (and thereby show you don’t really know them), but actually living them as subject is the real knowing, even if you are objectively mistaken about some things.

I also like this quote from one of the CS Lewis‘ Narnia series of books:

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Simone Weil is compared to Kierkegaard in her views but she was truly a detached person. Was she the saint that she is said to have been?

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When Jesus said “I and the Father are one”, he was speaking for everybody and everything.

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I recall she lived the truth on the battlefield. She reminds me of a Nellie Cashman in that respect. When I studied her she was more closely associated with Kant.

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Although she had a weapon as we see in this picture of in her in her Federación Anarquista uniform on her return from the Spanish Civil War front, 1936, she never actually fired it.

The problem with revolutions was, apparently, the problem with power.

This has been my observation for several years since an author of a series of Christian books pointed out that, even in a church community, power is being wielded by whoever has it. It isn’t reducd to the man or woman at the front, each encounter can become a confrontation with power - and often is.

The giving up of power is regarded as “absurd” by most people (also Christians) but that seems to be what Christ did, and what Simone Weil did, and both died.

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Simone Weil is merely “sleeping” (not really). And Christ rose again.

Legend has it she was injured as a camp cook. That’s why I compared her to Nellie Cashman.

“My power is perfected in weakness.” It’s not just what you do with it. It’s how it is defined.

A dictator who hoards all power doesn’t even know what true power is.

True power sets free.

Another way to say Philippians 2:6… “Being on the same level as the master (Father), he (Son) did not consider that level the end-all-be-all.” Contrast the way the serpent tempted Adam and Eve … as if that level was the end-all-be-all. Contrast also what the father said to the son (older brother) who was not prodigal. They who are forgiven more, love more. We love more because he first loved us.

Therein lies true power. All other kinds of power just enslave….most of all the ones who try to hold onto it because they think it is the end-all-be-all.

That doesn’t mean we just lay down and let enemies harm our families. It just means that we don’t put all (any of) our hope/trust in chariots, horses, swords…nukes…tunnels…hospitals…schools…innocents-as-shields.

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You conveniently evade the issue that power is constantly being wielded and many people are not aware they are doing it. Love is, in my definition, embracing a person as your sibling, or even as yourself, knowing that the dilemma you suffer, they are also going through.

You like to jump immediately into “harm our families” but there are many intermediary steps before we get that far. We have assumed a black-or-white approach to everything, whilst in fact it is very complex.

The problem isn’t being addressed that we need to be gentle with all life around us and we need to be aware of the conflict that evokes. Indigenous peoples spoke to the spirit of the animal they killed to eat, thanking it for its fight and sustenance, promising to honour it in their lives. They thanked whatever concept of a creator they had for the sustenance of the plant world. This meant that nothing could be taken for granted.

We are loaded guns, and we need to be careful where we point ourselves.